"Louis L'amour - sackett06 - The Daybreakers" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

Abilene was too new, it looked like a put-up job and Kansas hadn't shown us no
welcome signs up to now.
Then Mr. Belden came back and durned if he hadn't hired several men to guard the
herd so's we could have a night in town ... not that she was much of a place,
like I said. But we went in.

Orrin and me rode down alongside the track, and Orrin was singing in that big,
fine-sounding voice of his, and when we came abreast of the Drovers' Cottage
there was a girl a-setting on the porch.
She had a kind of pale blond hair and skin like it never saw daylight, and blue
eyes that made a man think she was the prettiest thing he ever did see. Only
second glance she reminded me somehow of a hammer-headed roan we used to have,
the one with the one blue eye ... a mighty ornery horse, too narrow between the
ears and eyes. On that second glance I figured that blonde had more than a
passing likeness to that bronc.
But when she looked at Orrin I knew we were in for trouble, for if ever I saw a
man-catching look in a woman's eyes it was in hers, then.
"Orrin," I said, "if you want to run maverick a few more years, if you want to
find that western land, then you stay off that porch."
"Boy," he put a big hand on my shoulder, "look at that yaller hair!"
"Reminds me of that hammer-headed, no-account roan we used to have. Pa he used
to say, 'Size up a woman the way you would a horse if you were in a horse trade;
and Orrin, you better remember that."
Orrin laughed. "Stand aside, youngster," he tells me, "and watch how it's done."
With that Orrin rode right up to the porch and standing up in his stirrups he
said, "Howdy, ma'am! A mighty fine evening! Might I come up an' set with you a
spell?"
Mayhap he needed a shave and a bath like we all did, but there was something in
him that always made a woman stop and look twice.
Before she could answer a tall man stepped out. "Young man," he spoke mighty
sharp, "I will thank you not to annoy my daughter. She does not consort with
hired hands."
Orrin smiled that big, wide smile of his. "Sorry, sir, I did not mean to offend.
I was riding by, and such beauty, sir, such beauty deserves its tribute, sir."
Then he flashed that girl a smile, then reined his horse around and we rode on
to the saloon.
The saloon wasn't much, but it took little to please us. There was about ten
feet of bar, sawdust on the floor, and not more than a half-dozen bottles behind
the bar. There was a barrel of mighty poor whiskey. Any farmer back in our
country could make better whiskey out of branch water and corn, but we had our
drinks and then Orrin and me hunted the barrels out back.
Those days, in a lot of places a man might get to, barrels were the only place a
man could bathe. You stripped off and you got into a barrel and somebody poured
water over you, then after soaping down and washing as best you could you'd have
more water to rinse off the soap, and you'd had yourself a bath.
"You watch yo'self," the saloon keeper warned, "feller out there yestiddy shot
himself a rattler whilst he was in the barrel."
Orrin bathed in one barrel, Tom Sunday in another, while I shaved in a piece of
broken mirror tacked to the back wall of the saloon. When they finished bathing
I stripped off and got into the barrel and Orrin and Tom, they took off. Just