"Jacquelyn Hooper - Home On The Range" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hooper Jacquelyn)

JACQUELYN HOOPER

HOME ON THE RANGE


In the second hour of waiting in the rain for something to happen, Chris
Havenport moved his leg.

"Be still," Paladin said.

Chris stared at him. Water dripped from Paladin's wide-brimmed hat, and ran down
his arms. His hands were clasped around the trigger of the rocket net, ready to
fire.

He stared straight ahead, through a break in the trees, at the clearing.

"I have to take a piss," Chris said.

"Hold it."

"Nothin's out there."

Paladin remained rigid. Chris carefully returned his leg to its previous
position, cursing Paladin in his head. Waiting was not the worst part of
extermination, but it was a close second. Paladin blackened his eye once for
coughing in a still glen, but even then Chris did not see the point. They
weren't after quail or hare.

There was no name yet for what they were after. Paladin called them hellion and
butchers; Chris had liked the sound of natives. Either way, who knew if they
could see them hiding in the bushes?

Paladin moved his head, alerting Chris to something to his right. Chris saw
nothing but leaves, and the blinking red light of the atmostat in the clearing.

But he felt a shift in the weather. Thunder drummed above him, and the air, once
filled with the sharp smell of leaves and his own musty wetness, was a river,
flooding his nose and ears. He suppressed the urge to cough, because Paladin was
not moving. He stood, seemingly rooted, his dark eyes piercing through the
curtain of water before them.

In the clearing, a woman appeared. She was naked, her skin the color of teak.
She spun around, a blissful expression on her wide face as the storm swirled
with her. She slowed, and the rain seemed to slow.

Chris watched her dance, following the way her black hair roped and swung across
her face and shoulders.
He did not know what possessed him, at that moment, to rise, to see better.

She reminded him of Rae, their custodian. They shared the same coffee shading,