"Joe Haldeman - Guardian" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

She sanded the letter and addressed an envelope while it was drying. We stepped
out into the cool fresh air and she handed both to me. "Try to see Reverend Bower first.
He actually controls the purse strings. If he's not in, Mrs. Archer will do—you might
want to talk to her anyhow, teacher to teacher."
The letter was an urgent request for secondary readers in history and religion,
which could be hand-me-downs from the Sitka school, along with a standing order for
pen points, ink, and loose paper of any description, preferably lined. She closed with a
note of urgency: September is closer than it seems; my secondary students need the
novelty of new materials, or they may stop coming. Their parents won't force them.
I folded the letter carefully and put it in the envelope. I checked my watch and
asked whether she would like to break bread with us aboard ship. She accepted avidly.
The men were still out wandering through the town and woods. I fired up the
stove and made us generous sandwiches of bacon and onion, with English mustard. The
bread was Chuck's latest attempt, not too stonelike. We had mugs of cool cider that had
just begun to turn. While we were eating I started some bacon for the men and gave
Grace an abbreviated version of our collective story.
"Be careful in Skagway," she said. "The town is run by a committee of thieves
and rogues led by a man called Soapy Smith. There isn't any real law other than what he
wants to happen."
"We should be able to stay out of his way," I said. "There must be thousands of
people there."
She nodded. "Maybe fifteen thousand, this time of year. Eager to get over the pass
before the first snow. Your timing is pretty good—though if you want to make some
money, rather than going through the slow torture of carrying all this stuff to the Yukon,
I'd put it up for sale on the dock in Skagway! You'd probably get twice what you paid for
most of it, and get back to Seattle before you see a flake of snow."
I laughed at that. "I'll suggest it. Somehow I doubt that my boys will have much
enthusiasm."
I was starting to worry about them. Some of the passengers and crew were
coming back, and though the crew were jabbering in Russian, it was pretty obvious that
we hadn't stopped here just for the water. A cluster of girls apparently no older than
Daniel stood on the dock and waved at them, giggling.
She followed my glance. "Your boy is ... not experienced?"
 "I don't think so. I'm almost certain not. Likewise Chuck, if my instincts are at all
good."
"We have several girls a year made pregnant by sailors and tourists," she said.
"They have to go someplace else. It's sad. Some of them wind up in Seattle or San
Francisco, with only one way to make a living. Or even worse." She paused, looking at
the girls waving. "Or better . . . the shamans have ways to stop the pregnancy."
"Murder the unborn child?" Of course I knew about that in "civilized" society.
"They don't see it that way," she said, her face set in a way that reinforced the
downward lines.
Chuck and Doc came up the gangway carrying a basket and a fish, a large salmon.
They'd been shopping. "Fresh caught," Doc said. "It only cost a quarter."
"Smoked venison," Chuck said, "a penny a strip."
"But it won't keep," I said to Doc.
"Won't have to. I'll cut us off four steaks and shop the rest around. Guarantee I'll
get more than the quarter back."
Daniel came aboard with a strange unreadable look on his face. Oh no, I thought.
But he had one hand behind his back and held it out to me.