"L'Amour, Louis - Last_of_the_Breed11" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

"My friends call me Joe Mack."
She was startled but not afraid. She knew at once who he was, who he had to be. And she knew trouble when she saw it. If they came looking for him, they would find them, they would be exposed, ruined, destroyed. All they had built would be lost.
First, the promised coffee, and then to be rid of him. She hoped it would be that simple.
He was tall and very straight. He walked easily, and his eyes swept the room as he entered. He stopped just inside the door where a sawed-off end of a log offered itself as a seat. He unslung his pack, placing it down beside him. "I have meat," he said.
Her look was a question. "Bear meat," he said. "If you like it."
"I have eaten it but once." She accepted a chunk of the meat and turned toward the stove, getting out some pans. When the meat was on the fire she brought him coffee. He tasted it carefully, then smiled. His teeth were very white. "That's good! I've missed it."
"Where are you going?"
He glanced at her. "You know who I am?"
"No, only that there is a search, a very serious search. They want you badly."
He sipped the coffee. "I can't get out of the country until spring," he said. "I must find a place to live until then."
"How did you come here?"
He shrugged. "Partly by chance. But I met a man, a man who said his name was Yakov. He spoke of people who live in the forest."
"Live? Hide is the correct word. They have not come for us because they do not care. We are nothing, or less than nothing, and sometimes we are valuable."
He glanced at her quickly. "Valuable? How?"
"Wulff--he is the man in power here--makes something from our trapping. Each year he receives furs, the best of them, and he looks the other way."
"Are there many of you?"
"Twenty-nine now." She looked at him with cool, measuring eyes. "Some of us are descendants of old exiles, from the time of the Tsar. Others served out their terms and had nowhere else to go. Some of us simply knew the wrong people. Nobody among us is looked for."
"I see." He looked up. "When I have eaten I shall move on. I will not endanger you."
He sipped his coffee. She stole a quick look at him from under her brows. "I am Natalya," she said. "Here they simply call me Talya."
"It is a pretty name."
She said nothing. He finished the coffee, and she went to the stove to turn the meat again.
"That man who left? He was angry with you."
She shrugged. "He is a fool, but a dangerous fool. He will ruin us all. He is Peshkov. He was a soldier, a butcher by trade." She paused. "He says his name is Peshkov. I think he lies. I do not trust him."
He watched her as she prepared the meat. She was slim and graceful, a truly lovely woman. He was no good at women's ages, never had been. She was probably in her twenties. She was poised, assured.
"What did Yakov tell you?"
"Nothing, except that you were here, a few of you."
"Why did he tell you?"
"Winter was coming. He knew I would need a place to live out the winter, but do not worry. I shall not stay."
She looked at his pack. "What is there?"
"Meat, nearly three hundred pounds of it, and a bear hide."
"You carried all that?"
"It is nothing. I have carried such packs since I was a boy." He smiled a little. "If you lived in America you might have heard of the Alaskan Indian who carried a piano over Chilkoot Pass during the gold rush days."
"We have our packers, too. The Yakuts carry enormous packs."
She brought a plate of sliced meat to him and refilled his cup. "You can hunt, then? Can you trap?"
"There's a blue fox skin in there, too. It was not well treated. I hadn't the time."
"Will you share what you kill?"
"I am an Indian, a Sioux. The hunters among us always shared. But I shall not worry you. I shall move on, further away, and when spring comes I shall go back to America."
She lifted a cynical eyebrow. "Is that so easy?"
He shrugged again. "I do not say it will be easy. I say I will do it."
He ate in silence. The meat had not only been cooked, but seasoned. Nothing he had ever tasted had seemed so good. And with the coffee it was a dream time.
She stood up. "Ssh! Someone is coming!"