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

ceramic jug of vodka, which they poured into small glasses, to drink in single gulps. The
prospectors traded with them, and pronounced it firewater, I believe as a compliment.
The Russians said no; water of life. A young man offered me a glass, but I declined.
 (If it had been wine, I would have taken it gladly, for its calmative effect—but my
recent experience with whiskey had taught me to expect the opposite from spirits.)
I had never felt so conspicuous, for being the only woman on board. Some of the
men might have expected me to faint or weep at the horrible sight—or at least go to the
rail and vomit, as many of them had—but I've never thought the "weaker" sex was
actually weaker in that regard. From childbirth, I knew more about pain and gore than
most of them. From three miscarriages, I knew enough about horror. Seeing a stranger
die was nothing compared to having life within you die, and expelling the remains.
(Our house in Philadelphia had had a fainting couch, which I would sometimes
resort to when I couldn't stand Edward's company. It probably made him smug in his
masculine superiority.)
It was still light around nine, when the rescue tug clattered up the strait. She came
alongside and threw a couple of light lines over, tied to thick hawsers. The crew hauled in
the hawsers and made them fast to cleats, while others were cranking up the anchor,
shouting directions and orders around in Russian. Without being able to understand a
word, you could hear the impatience, the need for haste. There wouldn't be any moon, I
knew, so it would be pitch dark for a few hours around midnight, and the captain
probably didn't want to be stranded by dark, the way we'd been in Wrangell.
We made good time, though, and the channel markers as we approached Sitka had
bobbing lamps. The first mate announced that we would be in port at least two days; if
anybody wanted to take a room ashore, a crew member would be keeping watch over our
kits.
That sounded good to all four of us, and we were the first down the gangplank.
There was a boy waiting there who asked whether we wanted rooms, and led us two
blocks to the Baranoff Hotel, an unprepossessing two-story shack with whitewash that
had gone gray.
Inside, the smell of fresh coffee, and an old woman whose chirpy alertness made
me feel like a heavy sleepwalker. Her rooms were nine dollars a night, meals included.
That seemed high—a month's rent in Dodge—but none of us had the spirit to argue over
it.
Daniel was still sleeping soundly after I'd arisen and had breakfast—as were
Chuck and Doc, and for the same reason; I sincerely hoped their whiskey wouldn't run
out before they got to Skagway. I left Daniel a note and got directions to the Sheldon
Jackson Industrial College, to deliver Grace's plea for books and supplies.
The morning was bright and cool, the salt breeze refreshing. Plenty of people and
traffic for such a small place—but at that time Sitka was still the territorial capital, as
well as Alaska's oldest city. The Russian influence remained here and there. A church
bell rang the hour, eight o'clock, and when I glanced up the hill at the sound, I saw it was
an Eastern Orthodox church, the one where the crewman would be buried today.
The Sheldon Jackson School wasn't hard to find, the only octagonal building
made of concrete in Sitka, or Alaska, or possibly North America. In the foyer there was a
chalkboard with names and room numbers.
Halfway around the octagon I found the door to Benjamin Bower's office open.
He was a large florid man with a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard. He was
jacketless, wearing a plaid weskit with a heavy golden watch chain. Busy watering
flowers at the window, he made a startled little jump when I tapped on the door.
 "Reverend Bower?"