"Gores, Joe - Kirinyaga" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gores Joe)

gressive individual she'd always wanted and hadn't found in Ken-
drick.
By the time he reached the summit of Point Lenana, only an
hour up the ridge from Top Hut, it was snowing again and the
two major peaks, Nelion and Batian, had been blotted out. It was
. just a scramble, nothing more strenuous than kicking steps in
each day's new snow. He'd been up to Lenana each morning for
the past three days, waiting for a window of decent climbing
weather to try the twin central peaks.
Going down, the snow-blanketed breadth of the Lewis Glacier
lay to his right, the clouds now pouring up over it and across the
ridge like smoke off dry ice. It was snowing in earnest when he
swung open the door of Top Hut, itself at 15,730 feet, and stomped
his feet clean. Only then did he realize two more climbers had ar-
rived.
"We wondered where you'd got to, with all your climbing gear
still here," said Perkins. The reporter from the Standard was a
slightly built youth, pale-skinned and pale-haired and, right now,
looking white and drawn around the mouth. The other climber
was Burke Hamlin.
"A scramble up Lenana." Kendrick stripped off outer clothing.
"Touch of mountain sickness?"
Burke Hamlin made a grandly dismissive gesture. He looked
nmense in his climbing clothes. "Not me. Young Perkins."
"You want some aspirin or Panadol for the head?"
"Some of the Panadol, if I may," said Perkins.
Kendrick watched him down the pills with water and fought a
rising anger. What the hell were these two doing up here? Per-
kins, easy of course: hero-worship of Hamlin, and a possible fea-
ture in one of the big London dailies. But why Hamlin? A talka-
tive bellhop at the hotel?
"Want to check the peaks," grunted Kendrick.
He left the hut without looking back, knowing the actor would
follow. Bloody fools. Hamlin, even Perkins, had never seen
Kirinyaga frown. Now, with the wet season pushing the snow line
down, that frown could be deadly to climbers. He turned when he
heard Hamlin's boots crunching behind him.
"Neither of you is a good enough climber for any real rock-
work."
Hamlin gave him that wide and famous grin that celluloid vil-
lains saw just before the choreographed mayhem began. "Maybe I
want to revise that estimate for you. Or maybe I want to say I
don't mind your sleeping with my woman, but why did you tell
her the truth about that climbing footage?"
Morna herself must have told Hamlin of their coupling. Why?
"I didn't know there was any bloody great secret about that
footage, Hamlin. But for what it's worth, I didn't tell her."
"She says you did."
He shrugged. "Maybe Kaye mentioned it. I didn't have to."
In a surprisingly mild voice Hamlin said, "You're rather a