"Eddings, David - High Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (High Hunt)

"You know where it is."

When I came back, I went over and leaned my head against his shoulder and looked at the newspaper with him to let him know I didn't hold any grudges. Jack fidgeted on the couch. Any kind of enforced nonactivity was sheer torture to Jack. He'd take ten spankings in preference to fifteen minutes of sitting in a corner. School was hell for Jack. The hours of sitting still were almost more than he could stand.

Finally, he couldn't take anymore. "Tell us a story, Dad."

The Old Man looked at him for a moment over the top of his newspaper. I don't think the Old Man really understood my brother and his desperate need for diversion. Jack lived with his veins, like Mom did. Dad just kind of did what he had to and let it go at that. He was pretty easygoing — I guess he had to be, married to Mom and all like he was. I never really figured out where I fit in. Maybe I didn't, even then.

"What kind of a story?" he finally asked.

"Cowboys?" I said hopefully.

"Naw," Jack vetoed, "that's kid stuff. Tell us about deer hunting or something."

"Couldn't you maybe put a couple cowboys in it?" I insisted, still not willing to give up.

Dad laid his newspaper aside and took off his glasses. "So you want me to tell you a story, huh?"

"With cowboys," I said again. "Be sure you don't forget the cowboys."

"I don't know that you two been good enough today to rate a story." It was a kind of ritual.

"We'll be extra good tomorrow, won't we, Dan?" Jack promised quickly. Jack was always good at promising things. He probably meant them, too, at the time anyway.

"Yeah, Dad," I agreed, "extra, extra, special good."

"That'll be the day," the Old Man grunted.

"Come on, Dad," I coaxed. "You can tell stories better'n anybody." I climbed up into his lap. I was taking a chance, since I was still supposed to be sitting on the couch, but I figured it was worth the risk.

Dad smiled. It was the first time that day. He never smiled much, but I didn't find out why until later. He shifted me in his lap, leaned back in the battered old armchair, and put his feet upon the coffee table. The wind gusted and roared in the chimney and pushed against the windows while the Old Man thought a few minutes. I watched his weather-beaten face closely, noticing for the first time that he was getting gray hair around his ears. I felt a sudden clutch of panic. My Dad was getting old!

"I ever tell you about the time your granddad had to hunt enough meat to last the family all winter?" he asked us.

"Are there cowboys in it?"

"Shut up, Dan, for cripes' sakes!" Jack told me impatiently.

"I just want to be sure."

"You want to hear the story or not?" the Old Man threatened.

"Yeah," Jack said. "Shut up and listen, for cripes' sakes."

"It was back in the winter of 1893, I think it was," Dad started. "It was several years after the family came out from Missouri, and they were trying to make a go of it on a wheat ranch down in Adams County."

"Did Grandpa live on a real ranch?" I asked. "With cowboys and everything?"

The Old Man ignored the interruption. "Things were pretty skimpy the first few years. They tried to raise a few beef-cows, but it didn't work out too well, so when the winter came that year, they were clean out of meat. Things were so tough that my uncles, Art and Dolph, had to get jobs in town and stay at a boardinghouse. Uncle Beale was married and out on his own by then, and Uncle Tod had gone over to Seattle to work in the lumber mills. That meant that there weren't any men on the place except my dad and my granddad."