"Steven Gould - Wildside" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gould Stephen Jay)

Marie said, "Sure." Joey nodded, his eyes narrowing, wondering what the cost would be. Rick
just said, "For other things, too." Clara's reaction was more like Joey's.

"Here's the deal. I've got a secret. It's not illegal. It's not immoral. Some might say it's not even
possible. But it's a secret and I want it kept that way. You promise not to tell anyone what I'm about
to show you. Not your friends, your brothers, your sisters, your parents, your priest." I looked at
Joey when I said priest. "That's the payment I want. To give me your word and keep it."

"I haven't been to confession in four years, Charlie. And if it's not immoral, why should it
matter?"

"Just promise."

Marie said, "Okay, Charlie." She looked a little hurt. She was my best friend, and she didn't
know what I was talking about. Well, I didn't tell her everything since she started going out with Joey.

Joey looked relieved. The cost, it seemed, was acceptable to him. "Sure, Charlie. It's a deal."

Rick said, "I promise."

Clara licked her lips. "Well, if what you said about it not being illegal or immoral is true, then I
promise as well. If it turns out that you're lying about that, then all deals are off."

I gritted my teeth together. "Of course."

There was a set of barrister bookshelves next to the door. I lifted the glass door on one shelf
and pulled a book from it. The place was marked with a reddish brown feather. "Look at this." I put
the book down on the coffee table, open, facing the couch. Marie and Joey came over and looked
down. Clara and Rick leaned forward.

Joey said, "Mourning doves, aren't they?" Joey and his father hunted.

Clara read from the caption. "Ectopistes migratortus. Mate and Female Passenger Pigeon, see
Pigeons—Columbidae, order Columbiformes."
 Marie said, "Passenger pigeons? They're extinct. Wiped out by hunting in the late 1800s, right?"

"That's right," I said. "Though technically, the last one died in captivity in 1914. Her name was
Martha. Bring the book. Follow me."

I led them back outside, to the barn. It was set partially back into the hill. The first story was
mortared fieldstone with wood siding on the hayloft above. I unlocked the padlock and swung open
one side of the large double door, found the light switch, and pulled the door shut behind us.

The barn was square, about thirty feet by thirty feet, with a hard dirt floor. There were five stalls
on the right-hand side and an ancient gasoline tractor parked on the left along with various
attachments: a plow, a disker, a small utility trailer, and an old rotary hay mower. At the back
left-hand corner, a worktable stood with all of Uncle Max's tools hung in neat rows on the wall
above. A table saw beside the bench stood under a canvas tarp.

I glanced at the back of the barn, where several hay bales were stacked nearly to the ceiling and