"Chalker, Jack L. - Dancing Gods 01 - The River of the Dancing Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

had that hollow, empty look, like somebody who'd been on
the booze pretty long and pretty hard.
"None of my business, but how'd you get stuck out here in
the middle of nowhere at three in the morning?" he asked
casually.
She gave a little sigh and looked out the window for a
moment at the black nothingness. Finally she said, "If you
really want to know, I jumped out of a car."
"Huh?"
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Chalker, Jack L - The River of the Dancing Gods
6 THE RIVER OF DANCING GODS
"I got a ride with a salesman—at least he said he was a
salesman—back at Ozona. We got fifteen, twenty miles down
the road and he pulled over. You can guess the rest."
He nodded.
"I grabbed the bags and ran. He turned out to be a little
scared of the dark, I guess. Just stood there yelling for me,
then threatened to drive off if I didn't come back. I didn't—
and he did."
He lighted a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and expelled the
smoke with an accompanying sigh. "Yeah, I guess I get the
picture."
"You—you're an Indian, aren't you?"
He laughed. "Good change of subject. Well, son of. My
mom was a full-blooded Seminole, my dad was Puerto Rican,
which is a little bit of everything."
"You're from Florida? You don't sound like a southerner."
Again he chuckled. "Oh, I'm from the south, all right. South
of Philadelphia, anyway. Long story. Right now what home I
have is in a trailer park in a little town south of Baltimore. No
Indians or Puerto Ricans around, so they just think of me as
something a little bit exotic, I guess."
"You're a long way from home," she noted.
He nodded. "More or less. Don't matter much, though. I'm
on the road so much the only place I really feel at home is in
this truck. I own it and I run it, and it's mine as long as I keep
up the payments. They had to let me keep the truck, otherwise
they couldn't get no alimony. What about you? That pretty
voice sounds pure Texas to me."
She nodded idly, still staring distantly into the nothingness.
"Yeah. San Antone, that's me."
"Air Force brat?" He was nervous at pushing her too much,
maybe upsetting or alienating her—she was on a thin edge,
that was for sure—but he just had the feeling she wanted to
talk to somebody.
She did, a little surprised at that herself. "Sort of. Daddy
was a flier. Jet pilot."
"What happened to him?" He guessed by her tone that something
had happened.