"Charles L. Grant - X-Files 02 - Whirlwind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

This is for Kathryn Ptacek.

For lots of reasons, but in particular, this time,
because I've mangled her New Mexico homeland
before, and she still hasn't shot me.

AHO LDMN
CNW GET
ES

My gratitude and fond appreciation to the poor folks who had to listen, advise, and humor me over the
past few months:
Caitlin Blasdell, who, for reasons known only to herselt, puts up with all my calls, and has never once told
me to stop bugging her and get back to work;
Steve Nesheirn, MD., for the wonderfully grue-some details, and for all the possibilities therein;
Wendy Webb, R.N., M.Ed., for taking those details and actually making them fun;
Geoffrey Marsh, for graciously allowing me to bor-row the Konochine Indians for my own disgusting
use;
The Jersey Conspiracy, as always, this time provid-ing me with more dead bodies than I could possibly
use this time around, and one drunk;
And Robert E. Vardeman, who never stops reminding me why it's nice to have good friends in far
places.




The sun was white and hot, and the wind blew ceaselessly.
Annie Hatch stood alone on her ranch house porch, one hand absently rubbing her stomach as she
tried to decide what to do. The late-morning sun made her squint, the temperature already riding near
ninety.
But the wind that coasted across the high desert made her wish, for the first time in a long time, that she
were back in California.
It hissed softly through the brush, and whis-pered softly in her ear.
Of course, she thought; you could also just be a doddering old fool. A quick smile, a quicker sigh, and
she inhaled
slowly, deeply, taking in the heat, and the pinon, and, so faintly she might have been imagining it, a sweet
touch of juniper.
Wind or not, voices or not, this was, all in all, far better than Hollywood.
That was where she and Burt had made their money, so many years ago it might have been a dream;
here was where they had finally made their lives, no dream at all.
A breath of melancholy fluttered her eyelids closed for a moment. It wasn't easy being a widow, even
after fifteen years. There were still too many times when she thought she heard him clumping back from
the stable behind the house, or whistling as he fiddled with the generator, or blowing gently on the back
of her neck.
The wind did that to her, too.
"Enough," she muttered, and strode impatiently to the end of the porch, leaned over the waist-high,
rough-hewn rail, and looked down the side of the adobe house to the stable. She whistled twice, high,
sharp, and loud, and giggled silently when she heard Nando curse, not very subtly let-ting her know he
hadn't finished saddling Diamond yet, was she trying to get him trampled?
A second later he appeared in the open door-way, hands on his wide hips, glaring at her from under